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Sherrin sets ball rolling on new Alice industry

The humble Australian Rules football is being turned into an industry in central Australia, with a new plan to hand manufacture the balls in Aboriginal communities.

Fourth generation football maker Syd Sherrin will launch the project today, teaching Alice Springs participants how to craft the footballs.

The project aims to create 100 jobs in the first three years and will be piloted in Alice Springs town camps and prisons before heading to remote communities.

Project founder Chris Harms, from the Ngurratjuta Corporation, says the first balls will be sent to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, the AFL and a local football team.

"Our big goal, our six month goal is to produce the six balls for the dream game on the MCG, Richmond verses Essendon," he said.

The project has Commonwealth and AFL backing and hopes to one day manufacture hundreds of thousands of footballs.

Mr Harms will begin the industry in Mutitjulu.

"We would like to supply 10 per cent of the Auskick balls which is 220,000 balls which go into every primary school kid's bag every year, if in five years time we could make all of those balls, it would keep 122 people busy eight months of the year, the football season, 22 hours a week," he said.

He hopes the scheme will be an alternative to work for the dole.

"The idea of building an industry and employment around a football theme seemed the wisest idea and [we] bounced ideas off people like Ted Egan, Gus Williams and they all said this could work and now the hard stuff started trying to convince Sherrin and the AFL and now the Federal Government," he said.

Camel hide

Mr Harms says camel hide for the footballs will be sourced from feral camels culled in central Australia.

"The camel hides is something I want to explore, there is culling going on and the one old does if we split the camel hide can produce the perfect qualities ... I hear from the Sherrin company and other companies that they used to use nearly as much camel hide as bullock hide back in the '30s and '40s," he said.

Mr Sherrin says it is sad so much Australian manufacturing has gone offshore.

"There's so many people throughout Australia who love playing and love watching football and it's part of our culture. It's grown up as a culture of Australia and what Chris and Kirsty Harms are doing to benefit the lifestyles of central Australia ... I'm so excited," he said.